Background Until They Testify To Oness
The majority of Scholars opine that the “people” in the narration refers to the Arab polytheists. The same interpretation can also be located in the Qur’an in Surah An-Nasr.
Another view says that the Prophet, sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, was referring to all people, excluding Ahlul Kitab, i.e. the people of the Book. It was said that this narration was abrogated by the later rulings concerning jizziya (compensation).
A third view interprets the hadith as saying that people have to accept the domination or supremacy of Islam – that Islam is the dominant religion. This objective or aim is to be achieved by whatever means, whether it is through fighting or by peaceful agreements.
Lessons
The Islamic region is the only true religion. It is the truth; it is the path of Allah. One of the divine Laws since the earth was created or brought into existence: evil has always been fighting against truth. The truth has to be defended or protected and it needs power to protect it. This is the sole philosophy of jihad in Islam: Jihad is to establish and sustain justice and truth. Jihad is not confined to just fighting. It has several other unpracticed or weakly practiced forms: da’wah, dissemination of knowledge and education of others, maximizing the good and minimizing the evil, reconciling clashes and conflicts between Muslims, striving for the betterment of community are all forms of jihad.
How do we deal with the concept of jihad in this contemporary life of ours? There are oppressed Muslim communities whereby fighting is a choice. However, generally speaking, we can answer the question based on confronting and dealing with two kinds of challenges: internal and external ones.
Internal Challenges encountering Muslims
Today unluckily, the Muslim ummah is not united. It is divided and split into various groups and sects whether religious or political. Conflicts are found every where between Muslims. In this context jihad means to re-establish the unity of the Muslim communities and of the ummah at large. It means also to do away with or minimize clashes and disputes.
Another issue is the lack of comprehension of Islam by the Muslims themselves. The majority of Muslims today do not understand the true and right meaning of Islam, even the basic concepts. Here, jihad takes the form of disseminating the true message of Islam to the Muslims and educating them so that they become fully cognizant about the basics of their deen.
Since the majority of the Muslims do not truly comprehend Islam, they do not practice their
religion correctly or completely. This implies the shahadah of the ummah (i.e. being witnesses of the truth) is not activated today. We should be establishing ourselves as a role model to other nations but we are not found to be doing so. We should as best as we can, be practicing the great values, concepts and principles of Islam and following its rulings and guidelines. If we do so, this will portray the real picture of Islam and make us the perfect model for other societies, communities and nations.
Only then will the non-Muslims feel attracted to Islam and perhaps fully accept the dominance of Islam in their society because they see that the dominance of Islam implies justice, good values, wellbeing of human kind, etc.
This is a great jihad which we should undertake though it requires great effort and may take a very long time, i.e. decades, to establish. We should embark on this jihad step by step, with distinct efforts happening simultaneously: efforts to educate the Muslims their great religion; efforts to make them practice it and be good role models to others; efforts to make Muslims a great nation worthy of being emulated, and to make them united.
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